The images he downloaded from a US website are described as "vile" and "unimaginably cruel". He used false names to communicate with fellow perverts on the net and kept lurid personal records of his exchanges in longhand. A graphic picture of a young man was posted on the inside cover of his depraved diary.

Last Monday, Michael Mead of the US Postal Inspection Service was ready to show 280 images retrieved from Curtin's computer in a committee room of Leinster House. Civil servants were given the option of not attending, so harrowing were the images.

They depict sexual conduct between adults and children . . . boys under the age of eight or nine and girls under the age of 12. Apparently, Judge Curtin's defence was to be that he intended to view adult porn, which breaks no law, but in his drunken state, he inadvertantly downloaded the sick images of child porn.

However, none of these matters were viewed or investigated because at the 11th hour, Judge Curtin resigned, ending the inquiry, but still allowing him to claim his pension if he can persuade the government that he is permanently incapicitated.

He is apparently suffering organic brain damage, has a heart condition and now wants to move to somewhere like Spain. Friends say he is a broken man and close to penniless.

Interesting, therefore, that he was smart enough to exploit the system that let him off in criminal court over a technicality by letting the Dail investigation run until the extent of his perversion was about to be exposed. He has never shown contrition or apologised.

He was just seven months on the bench when detectives raided his home in 2002 and seized his computer, but he continued to draw his 153,000 annual salary until last Monday. He has had over four years to do the decent thing and resign. This is not just a man unfit to be a judge, it is a man who is a pariah to all right-thinking people.